Second release of the HP 3000 Series III simulator

[J. David Bryan]

The second release of the HP 3000 Series III simulator is now available 
from the Computer History Simulation Project (SIMH) site:

  https://github.com/simh/simh

This release adds a simulation of the HP 2607, 2613, 2617, and 2618 line 
printers and supports the use of custom VFU tape images, as well as the 
built-in HP-standard VFU tape.  The full set of configurable options is 
detailed in a new section of the HP 3000 Simulator User's Guide that is 
provided in Microsoft Word format in the "doc" subdirectory of the code 
base snapshot downloaded from the github site.  A PDF version of the 
updated manual is also available at:

  http://alum.mit.edu/www/jdbryan/hp3000_doc.pdf

In addition, the preconfigured MPE-V/R disc image available from Bitsavers:

  http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/HP/HP_3000/

...has been updated to add the following features:  

  - The MPE cold load command files attach the line printer to the "lp.txt"
    output file and specify the "-n" option to clear the file before use.

  - Preinstalled User-Defined Commands (UDCs) provide access to the COBOL
    74 compiler with the MPE-V/E :COBOLII, :COBOLIIPREP, and :COBOLIIGO
    commands, and to the COBOL 85 compiler with :COBOLIIX,
    :COBOLIIXPREP, and :COBOLIIXGO.  However, note that the simulator
    currently does not provide the HP 32234A COBOL II firmware
    instructions, so programs generated by the COBOLII compiler will
    abort at run time with "ILLEGAL INSTRUCTION" errors, limiting the
    current utility of the compilers to syntax checking. 

Thanks once again go to Frank McConnell for providing the HP line printer 
subsystems manuals that facilitated development of the new simulation, and 
to Robert Mills for providing the COBOLII UDCs.

                                      -- Dave